NuWho Rewatch: Planet of the Ood

[purplecat]

Speaking of giant pink brains, which I have been doing intermittently since the Randomizer served up Time and the Rani...

To be brutally honest, I'm not sure big pink brain effects have progressed a great deal since 1987. The Ood central brain is definitely one of the weak points of this story both in terms of scientific plausibility and in terms of special effects.

Beyond that observation I'm not sure I have a great deal to add to my comments when the randomiser served this story up. It has the potential to be both strange and complex but in the end decides to focus its energies more on running around than examining the ideas it raises.

I had forgotten (though I think there was some discussion when the story first aired) that the Doctor and Donna end up as figures of reverence in both this story and Fires of Pompeii. NLSS Child noticed and commented upon the link directly. It's an interesting idea, especially given the way Davies is building the Lonely God characterisation for the 10th Doctor, but I think it must have been a coincidence since we don't see it repeated again.

It's one of the season's weaker stories, but it holds up pretty well, all things considered and doesn't feel like a place filler in the way some of the stories in seasons 2 and 3 appeared.

Comments

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

There's a Blake's 7 episode with a big disembodied brain too (Ultraworld, I think). There must be a lot of people out there who think it's a sensible and achievable idea.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

...or are just not bothered about either. I think Planet of the Ood works as a variation on an old kind of folk story, and as an expression of Davies's pessimism about human beings.

[purplecat]

Hmm... I think Davies was very much concerned that modern Doctor Who look good. He's a showman first and foremost, even though he often has serious writerly ideas he wants to explore. He's always seemed very aware that that attention needs to be paid to the look of the thing if you want people to get as far as thinking about your ideas.

One of the interesting things about Davies' tenure on the show is the tension between the "humans are fantastic" message he thought the show needed with his own apparent pessimism about human nature. I don't think that really comes through here though. This particular story is more interesting in the spectacle than the ideas, possibly because of its place in the season.

[purplecat]

One the face of it, it shouldn't be too difficult. It's not like brains move about much, but somehow it never really seems to work.